TRAILER: ‘Milk’
It’s been a while since a movie trailer reduced me to a withering mess of tears, but the trailer for the upcoming Harvey Milk biopic directed by Gus Van Sant, did just that. If this film isn’t one of my favorites of the year, I’ll be very surprised.
It stars Sean Penn in an uncanny portrayal of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician in the 1970s and one of America’s first openly gay elected officials. Milk — whose trials and tribulations were so wonderfully charted in the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk” — was eventually gunned down by fellow city supervisor Dan White (here played by Josh Brolin). White would eventually cite what came to be known as “The Twinkie Defense”: “You can’t blame me judge. My blood sugar was high. I was out of my mind.”
And this movie marks somewhat of a return to accessibility for director Gus Van Sant, whose last half dozen projects (of the mundane dread of school shootings and walking through desertes) perplexed most audiences. I’m pleased to see him back in the driver’s seat of a major Hollywood film. And I’m thrilled that millions more will know who Harvey Milk was by the end of 2008.
“Milk” hits theaters on Nov. 26.
